Giuliani exits national stage

NEW YORK — Rudy Giuliani’s announcement that he will not seek statewide office next year likely brings down the curtain on a fading political career and marks the expiration of two electoral forces that the former New York mayor came to embody: the urban revival of the ‘90s and the post-Sept. 11 politics of national security.

For such an outsized figure, Giuliani exited Tuesday in a modest and underwhelming fashion. He spoke at a moderately-attended news conference in a hotel basement and offered only the most practical reasons for turning down clear shots at the Senate and the governorship — elections that would have propelled him back to the national stage in 2012 or 2016.

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"This is not a decision not to run for anything else," he insisted when asked at a news conference if ruling out New York’s gubernatorial and Senate races effectively marked the end of his time in electoral politics. "It is a decision purely about 2010 and what I can and cannot do in 2010 occasioned by a lot of commitments I have."

"The main reason has to do with my two enterprises: Bracewell & Giuliani and Giuliani Partners," he said. "I'm very busy in both."

He quipped: "It would be hard running from Brazil," a reference to his consulting firm’s contract with the country's 2016 Olympic Committee.

But the prospect of returning to politics was shadowed, most of all, by a presidential campaign that he never seemed to embrace, and one in which his defining moment — the Sept. 11 attacks — was reduced to a one-liner about a one-trick candidate.

And so Giuliani turned up at Conference Room E at the Sheraton New York to endorse former GOP Rep. Rick Lazio — yet again.

The former mayor, now 65, had endorsed the boyish-looking Long Islander once before, for an office in which he, Giuliani, was the preferred candidate. But nine years after Giuliani’s aborted Senate run against Hillary Clinton, the boyish Lazio’s grey hair wasn’t the only change on vivid display.

In 2000, Hizzoner’s withdrawal dominated the heat-seeking New York press. This year, his announcement, leaked last night, was met with a collective shrug in a city more focused on the holidays, Giants’ playoff prospects and the Astor family saga.

The New York Post carried its story on his decision on Page 8. It ran on Page 26 of the Daily News. His longtime chief of staff, Tony Carbonetti, was absent from the event, as was his wife, Judith.

The pugnacious former prosecutor who sat astride New York politics for more than a decade and who, like so many other larger-than-life figures, became known across the world simply by his first name, went out with something closer to a whimper than the bang he so often delivered.

Giuliani spoke, then crossed his hands, shifted his feet and looked around the room as Lazio talked about bringing the state’s budget under control.

Rep. Peter King, the longtime New York GOP congressman and staunch Giuliani ally, said he had breakfast with his friend this summer and it was clear that he was eyeing dysfunctional Albany in the same fashion he did New York before his successful 1993 mayoral campaign.